While dollar-pegged stablecoins like USDC and USDT are popular in Argentina as dollar substitutes, fintech companies have turned their attention to local stablecoins.
A recent Iproup report highlights that two banking holding groups are developing stablecoins pegged to the Argentine peso, with a particular focus on providing programmable money services for institutional clients.
The BIND Group—a holding company with over $2 billion in assets under management, which owns BIND Banco Industrial—will develop a peso stablecoin through BEN, its in-house Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP). The conglomerate also announced a partnership with Circle to provide institutional access to BEN's clients, supporting payment and treasury use cases in compliance with local regulations.
The Petersen Group, which also owns several regional banks, will advance the second initiative through a subsidiary with support from Lirium—a 'crypto-as-a-service' solution provider for Banco Galicia and Brubank. This offering, called DIPE, has already passed the development stage and has its own whitepaper.
These two initiatives share a common thread: they are promoted by companies backed by banking conglomerates, but not by the banking groups themselves, as the Central Bank of Argentina has prohibited private banks from offering crypto-related services to their clients since May 2022.
The primary target audience for these offerings will be the institutional sector, which can leverage the 'smart' features of the digital peso for payments. Use cases for these initiatives include treasury management operations, event-triggered payments on the blockchain, and collateralized loan management.
Although decentralized peso alternatives are already available, these offerings will rely on the backing of banking groups, with the potential to expand their use to private banks in the future, as reports indicate the central bank is considering lifting the ban on crypto offerings.
Nevertheless, in March, the argt peso stablecoin drew scrutiny from the national securities market regulator, which emphasized that it constitutes a security offered without proper compliance.
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